Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1): 1918-38

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Letter from Peter from Cairo: he says that Anthony Eden’s visit flopped at the end. He also adds that he won’t let me down; so perhaps we shall live together and I shall have the most charming of companions to désennuyer ma tristesse and keep me young. My affairs are improving.

At various points in his life Channon kept a series of diaries. Under his will, he left his diaries and other material to the British Museum "on condition that the said diaries shall not be read ... until 60years from my death." [25] An expurgated selection from the diaries was published in 1967. [26] The necessity for expurgation is illustrated by the reaction of an Oxford contemporary who, when told that no diaries from that period existed, said, "Thank God!" [27] The editor of the original edition, Robert Rhodes James, said he saw well-connected people go white when they heard that Channon had kept a journal. [9] Once it became clear that he would not achieve ministerial office, Channon focused on his other goal of elevation to the peerage, but in this, too, he was unsuccessful. The highest honour he achieved was a knighthood in 1957. [3] His friend Princess Marthe Bibesco sent him a telegram, "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (referencing the 1934 novella of that name by James Hilton). [22] Channon, who smoked and drank heavily, died from a stroke at a hospital in London on 7 October 1958, at the age of 61. [23] [24] Legacy [ edit ] Diaries [ edit ] When it comes to the great cultural figures he meets, Channon seems incurious to the point of philistinism. André Gide is “a dreadful, unkempt poet-looking person”. Stravinsky? “A small little man, unimpressive and uninteresting looking like a German dentist. He has no manners.” Proust – with whom Channon may have had a liaison – gets off a little better, but has bad manners, grubby linen and pours out “ceaseless spite and venom about the great”. HG Wells is “common” and “betrays his servant origin”. TE Lawrence is “not a gentleman”. Somerset Maugham? “Of course, not a gentleman”.In the following diary entries (the bold text indicates redacted information that has never been seen before) the realities are laid bare, amid the fear of invasion and the Blitz. The blow, long foreseen, has fallen. Honor looking sheepish, soon bolted out the truth. She wants me to divorce her so that she may marry Mr Woodman. Apparently his wife is about to sue him, naming Honor. At last, after a three hours’ conversation I promised to let her know my decision in January. Of course I shall give in – but it is the end of Southend, of a peerage, of my political aspirations, of vast wealth and great names and position – all gone, or going. Somehow I didn’t care as I ought. Will I marry again? Or shall I live with Peter? He wrote two more books: a second novel, Paradise City (1931) about the disastrous effects of American capitalism, [3] and a non-fiction work, The Ludwigs of Bavaria (1933). The latter, a study of the last generations of the ruling Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavarian kings, received excellent notices, and was in print twenty years later. Some critical reservations reflected Channon's adulation of minor European royalty: The Manchester Guardian said of his account of the 1918 revolution, "he seems to have depended almost exclusively on aristocratic sources, which are most clearly insufficient." [11] Despite this, the book was described on its reissue in 1952 as "a fascinating study... excellently written". [12] Reviewing the published diaries in The Observer in November 1967, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "Grovellingly sycophantic and snobbish as only a well-heeled American nesting among the English upper classes can be, with a commonness that positively hurts at times. And yet – how sharp an eye! What neat malice! How, in their own fashion, well written and truthful and honest they are! … What a relief to turn to him after Sir Winston's windy rhetoric, and all those leaden narratives by field-marshals, air-marshals and admirals!" [34]

Every person mentioned, intimation given and allusion made is thoroughly investigated and explained. This is only the first volume of three, which together will form an essential part of the library of anyone interested in 20th century politics. Channon, who was a naturalised British subject (as of 11 July 1933), [17] joined the Conservative Party. At the 1935 general election, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Southend, the seat previously held by his mother-in-law Gwendolen Guinness, Countess of Iveagh. After boundary changes in 1950, he was returned for the new Southend West constituency, holding the seat until his death in 1958. [4] The diaries, even in their bowdlerised form, provoked a writ for libel from one of Channon's fellow MPs, though the case did not come to court, being settled privately in the decade after Channon's death. [35] Historian Alan Clark, a Conservative MP from February 1974, refers on multiple occasions to Channon's diaries in his own diaries. [36] Ferguson, Donna (3 November 2019). "Revealed: uncensored diaries of the Tory MP who partied with Nazis and the idle rich". The Observer . Retrieved 3 November 2019. The best diarists are flawed individuals who exist on the fringe of events and are natural observers and acerbic wits. Snobbery helps too. Think Samuel Pepys, James Boswell, Alan Clark. Henry “Chips” Channon (1897-1958) has long been seen as one of these too. But it is only with the publication of these unexpurgated diaries, superbly edited by Simon Heffer, that we can truly recognise quite how perfectly he fits the type.

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Channon, who then gives the reader a ringside seat at the abdication crisis, is delighted that Edward VIII is also rumoured to be a Nazi-sympathiser, and constantly ridicules doddering old Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper and others who could see what was coming. He is honest enough to accept that he is a coward, who desperately hopes he will be too old to fight in any coming war. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. a b c d e f g h i j k Davenport-Hines, Richard, "Channon, Sir Henry (1897–1958)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, accessed 29 August 2009

As the diaries progress, Channon becomes more thoughtful, and analyses himself using the casual misogyny of the day: “Sometimes I think I have the character of a very clever woman – able, but trivial, with flair, intuition, great good taste and second-rate ambition: I am susceptible to flattery, and male good looks; I hate and am uninterested in all the things men like such as sport, business, statistics, debates, speeches, war and the weather…” I drove in the afternoon with Honor to her farm: the crater caused by the bomb – it must have been a 1,000-pounder – is really immense. All my suspicions and distrust of Honor’s bailiff, a Mr Woodman were revived. He is insolent, swaggers about, and treats her with scant respect. She allows herself to be so familiar with that sort of people. I think I am wise in saying nothing; usually she tires of them. But I foresee trouble with that man; serious trouble, probably financial. Carreño, Richard (2011). Lord of Hosts: The Life of Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon. Philadelphia, PA: WritersClearinghousePress. pp.43–46, 51–53. ISBN 978-1-257-02549-7. No one seems to know how he met Honor, the daughter of Lord Iveagh, a member of the Guinness family – the diaries are missing for this period – but with their marriage in 1933, the gates to a lavish world are flung fully open. His father-in-law helps him to buy his house in Belgravia, with its grand dining room, a “symphony” in silver and aquamarine that has been decorated to resemble a certain rococo royal hunting lodge near Munich, and an estate in Essex (though his marriage to Honor doesn’t last; both are determinedly unfaithful – in this volume, she with her skiing instructor). Hugely rich and preposterously well-connected – if there is a ball, Chips will almost certainly be in attendance – he is now well on his way to becoming the Pepys of the interwar years. After George VI's accession Channon's standing in royal circles went from high to low and, as an appeaser, so did his standing in the Conservative party after the failure of appeasement and the appointment of the anti-appeaser Winston Churchill as prime minister. Channon remained loyal to the supplanted Neville Chamberlain, toasting him after his fall as "the King over the Water", and sharing Butler's denigration of Churchill as "a half-breed American". [21] Channon remained a friend of Chamberlain’s widow. Channon's interest in politics waned after this, and he took an increasing interest in the Guinness family brewing interests, though remaining a conscientious and popular constituency MP. [4]

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Heffer, Simon (5 September 2021). "Will I marry again? Or shall I live with Peter?". The Sunday Telegraph . Retrieved 5 September 2021. If I have any advice for aspirant diarists it would be this: diarists are not creatures of the crowd; they must live among it yet remain detached from it, like spies. They should take things they have discovered and report upon them and be considerably cautious when doing so. And like the spy, their best work should mostly be done alone and without fanfare. When they finally come in from the cold, wearing a tin hat is advisable. Otherwise, they should wait, like Chips did, until they and everyone else are six feet under. All safely history – yet I think Chips Channon is significant precisely because of his wild misjudgements. They were commonly shared. They were founded on fear of the unknown, and consequent political hysteria. It led him and huge swathes of the English aristocracy to fawn on foreign fascists – never thinking that what started there could come home to roost. In the 2020s, with the democracies again in decline, we should not feel entirely smug.